Posts Tagged ‘solidarity’

The Libertarian Syndicalist Union (ESE Athens) sends support and solidarity greeting to the employees of the printing of AGR-Clarin newspaper in Argentina that are in multi-day struggle (occupation of the workplace), asking to revoke their colleagues layoffs.

We denounce the strikebreaking tactic of the employer, which in order to break the mobilization, he prints the Sunday edition of the newspaper in the neighboring country of Chile. The business committee of the AGR-Clarin workers sent a letter to the Chilean unions and in the union of Argentine truckers, asking for their solidarity: not to print or transfer the scabs form.

The struggle of the workers in the printing facilities of Clarin is part of the general struggle of the Argentine labor movement against the government’s austerity measures Macri, as well as against the anti-working-class choices of the bosses. The Macri government attacks on workers’ achievements and tries to remove rights and freedoms conquered through struggle. The attempt to repress and dismantle the self-managed Bauen Hotel in Buenos Aires, it’s one more example of the anti-labor aggression. Read the rest of this entry »

Τhe Bauen Hotel in Argentina is about to close down, after 14 years of operation by workers self-management. Through a law passed by the Congress of Argentina on November 30 of 2016, the property was expropriated for the benefit of the worker’s cooperative. Nevertheless, the President of Argentina Mauricio Macri decided to exercise his veto right against expropriation law.

Apart from the fact that the workers and their families will find themselves in a difficult financial situation, it is important that the Argentine state decided to hit one of the most emblematic companies recuperated by workers. Through the blow to the Bauen cooperative, the state attempts to hit all of the recuperated businesses and the horizontal-management movement that was developed in the country.

This very minute, inside and outside Argentina a pressure movement has being developed , a movement that invites members of the House of Representatives and Senate to reject the presidential veto and ratify the law expropriates the Bauen Hotel for the benefit of its employees, therefore to prevent eviction them from the hotel. The Libertarian Union of Athens (ESE) invites every workers’ collective, every base union, every trade union, labor collectives and every individual worker or employee, both women and men, to support the self-organized Bauen hotel, and to join their voice to the international pressure of the working class and social movement, so that the workers in Bauen emerge victorious. Read the rest of this entry »

These two texts have been sent to our email by the Libertarian Syndicalist Union (ESE). The first one is a description of the actions taken place by the Unión regarding the issue of the Syrian refugees who have arrived in Greece during the past months. The second is an analysis of the issue.

On Friday, December 19th, our members visited the Syrian refugees, which have resorted to a hotel located in the center of Athens, waiting for the fulfillment of Greek state’s commitments (granting asylum and travel documents).

We transported and delivered some clothing, food and medicine, contributing to the effort made to meet their needs. We also discussed with them about the civil war, their uprooting, their fight, listened carefully to their problems as well as their concerns and pledged to keep in constant touch and help them in every possible way.

Moreover, we visited some Syrian refugees that live in another hotel, whose accommodation costs are covered by a Solidarity Assembly. Like the previous ones, these refugees were «seeped» by the Greek police in Syntagma Square, with a violent and inhumane way, having lost their personal stuff (documents, mobile phones, money, clothes, shoes). Read the rest of this entry »

Elections 2015: How could the electoral struggle of the parliamentary left strangle any healthy community organizing and horizontal self-organizing due to their lack of any other potential proposal.

When the traditional welfare state in Europe became obvious that it was not going to survive the onslaught of neo-liberal budgetary/fiscal crisis (an artificial economic crisis according to some or an inevitable fiscal crisis according to others) the consequences on the population were not too far from materializing. The social control and management mechanisms of the state had to fabricate a tool to manage a crisis, in this case we are dealing with is health. Instead of addressing the health needs of the population with some form of health-care within the economic realities caused by the economic crisis it chose to continue privatizing health care and leaving the rest for charity. Unlike the US society, where the welfare state itself was minimal and primitively crude, charity networks have for long take a load of the state’s responsibilities, in Europe there is a very high expectation that all such needs are rights protected by the state for all its citizens. Even when natural disasters hit Southern European states, the public is trained to expect and demand the impossible from the state. In the case of health care needs the state has finally devised a social control mechanism to relieve any resulting political pressure due to this neo-liberal transition.

This mechanism, or shall we say weapon from the armory, is in the form of a left wing party able to orchestrate a “movement” of charity and volunteerism in the form of a new-world alternativism participatory masquerade. What they could not be creative enough to devise on their own that had to borrow from the anarchist/anti-authoritarian/libertarian movement, redefine its anti-state rhetoric to some meaningless (to them) propaganda terminology, incorporate and assimilate what they could, torpedo anything they could not, and vois la: An alternative health care system, run and controlled by the state, with volunteers as employees, and a product of left-wing social democratic ingenuity. Read the rest of this entry »

Alfonso Fernandez Ortega is a young man of 22, citizen of the working class neighborhood of Vagieka, Madrid, who was arrested as he was getting out of his house on 14/11/2012. On that date a general European strike was to take place. He was arrested as he was heading to a strike protection group in his neighborhood. As with all the rest, he was participating in the strike to demand no more unemployment, no more anti-labor reforms, no more cutbacks to social welfare, no privatization of health care or education.

The police accused him of carrying a rucksack with Molotov bombs and charge him with possession of explosives. It seems that in Spain as is the case in Greece, this is a popular police practice for framing demonstrators. Although no fingerprints of Alfonso or other any other evidence was found on the rucksack, he was kept in custody.

Thanks to international solidarity and coordinated protests on 28/12/2012 the media were forced to report the incident and Alfon was released (after 56 days in jail) on 9/01/2013. On the 18/9/2014 , he went on trial, charged with possesion of explosives. If he is found guilty he will face a five and a half year imprisonment. Read the rest of this entry »

To whom this may concern, if I was part of the editorial team I would have advised to refrain from publishing your comment before some matters can be addressed in a personal communication and with the good will to reconsider. Even though your frustration with how things appear to the outsider may seem reasonable, they reflect a form of elitism of how things may and should be handled ideally. I will try to explain on what basis this may seem as elitism but I will also try to avoid any excuses for any perceived side. The other reason I feel obliged to respond is that I too have been periodically involved with the assembly that organized the event but by no means do I wish to represent the collective. I wouldn’t even advise any assembly to respond to personal criticism as this practice may short-wire the process of any collective entity sending it in endless loops of developing counter arguments on a dialog with an individual.

If you undertake a more precise search on literature published in Greek you may find various collectives that have either specialized or referred to the Zapatistas and their development. AKA for example is an anarchist group that has published an article appealing to the general movement about the subject. There have been other entities recently that have also published documents about the struggle of the Zapatistas. There are others and have been more in the past that were “assembled” as collectives based on the subject and then dissolved only to form yet new groupings. These seem as healthy signs of a movement under constant reconsideration and evolution. Read the rest of this entry »

In this post we publish an email we received from a person who is not a permanent resident of Greece, and who attended the event “in solidarity with the rebel Zapatista autonomous communities”, held in the evening of July 12, 2014 in Athens. We neither adopt nor reject what is written in this email in its entirety. We publish it because we think it is interesting for both its content and the point of view which approximate the event.

After noting on your site the call for an event “solidarity to the Zapatista rebel communities” I decided to attend the event accompanied with a Greek friend who loosely belongs to the extra-parliamentary left. The reason I visit websites such as yours quite often is to discover what is happening in the wider (anti-authoritarian/anti-capitalist) movement in Greece, where I am living for a few years due to employment. Relatively few activities and political documents are translated from Greek to other languages. For those whose native language is not Greek, participating in activities and organization has proven not to be very hospitable. Generally the prevalent climate is that of personal relationships and acquaintances among comrades that make newcomers seem very self-conscious and perplexed (this may very well also apply to local newcomers as it is to foreigners).

The subject of Zapatismo, and more generally of social organization of the marginalized peoples of Latin America, has been a prime interest of mine for many years. Indirectly, I try to keep myself abreast on the developments there and at the influences of these movements on other parts of the world, primarily in North America and Europe. To be honest, I didn’t go to the event that you published to inform myself, but to see how Zapatismo is used as a mobilization tool, by what kind of political entities, why is this subject promoted, how is it adopted, and how it generally affects the local movement. Read the rest of this entry »

Saturday, July 12th, at 6pm, in the small theater of May Day (Protomaghia) Square
Informational event, discussion, video projection, concert

For the economic support of the Zapatista autonomous structures in the community of La Realidad that were destroyed during the attack by paramilitaries , where comrade Galeano was killed.

“In the earliest hours of the morning on the first day of the first month of the year 1994, an army of giants, that is to say, of indigenous rebels, descended on the cities to shake the world with their step…

For us … What began in 1994 was one of many moments of war of those from below against those from above, against their world…

This war of resistance is fought day in and day out in the streets of any corner of the five continents, in their countrysides and in their mountains.

Against death, we demand life. Against silence, we demand the word and respect. Against oblivion, memory. Against humiliation and contempt, dignity. Against oppression, rebellion. Against slavery, freedom. Against imposition, democracy. Against crime, justice.

All this in the midst of a war that was no less lethal because it was silent. Kill or die as the only destiny? Or should we reconstruct the path of life, that which those from above had broken and continue breaking? Read the rest of this entry »